By Norm Dixon
Papua New Guinea Defence Force soldiers and the pro-PNG "resistance" militias were implicated in the murder of Theodore Miriung, premier of the Port Moresby-appointed Bougainville Transitional Government, a coronial inquiry has found. In the wake of the October 12 assassination, PNG PM Sir Julius Chan and PNGDF commander General Jerry Singirok loudly blamed the murder on the rebel Bougainville Revolutionary Army.
Coroner Thirunavukkarasu Suntheralingham, a former Sri Lankan judge seconded to PNG by the Commonwealth secretariat, concluded a three-week investigation by blaming a PNGDF unit, based at Tunu village, and local resistance fighters.
Justice Suntheralingham said a 15-20 member army unit commanded by a sergeant was at Tunu at the time of the assassination. Miriung was assassinated by at least two gunmen at his wife's village at Konga, south-west Bougainville.
"Two people appeared to have fired the shots with the help of six to seven others", Suntheralingham said. The names of the culprits were known, he said, but they would not be made public for fear that they would go into hiding.
Only a handful of villagers were prepared to speak to the inquest. Some witnesses refused to be flown to Buka, in Bougainville's north, because it is controlled by the PNGDF. On at least one occasion, the PNGDF prevented a resistance fighter being flown to Port Moresby to give evidence.
Local villagers "fear repercussions from the army unit and resistance fighters who are still in the area", the coroner said. He recommended that the army unit be withdrawn from the area.
Suntheralingham confirmed reports that an ambulance used by the military was seen near the murder scene shortly before and after the killing. "What has been revealed so far is that members of the PNGDF and resistance fighters working with the defence forces were the persons involved in this killing", the judge said.
Suntheralingham said there was "no evidence, nothing at all" to link the killing with the pro-independence Bougainville Interim Government of the BRA. In a statement, the BIG accused the PNGDF of duplicity for blaming the killing on the BRA.
"The main culprits are the PNG government, PNG security forces and their local allies", BIG president Francis Ona said on December 2. "The PNG government stands condemned in front of the world for the murder of its own installed peace negotiator. In the face of this finding by the coronial judge, it now justifies more than ever the call from all Bougainvilleans and their leaders for the PNGDF to be withdrawn from Bougainville."